Decorative drawing: a small American settlement seen from a low hill. Not a photograph of this place.

Sudbury, Massachusetts

43 topographic sheets cover this place, the earliest surveyed in 1886 and the latest in 1989. It stands in Sudbury town. It lies in ZIP code area 01776. It stands on Pendleton Hill. The Survey maps it on the Maynard quadrangle.

Sudbury within Middlesex County

Then and now

1886 to 1989

The same ground, surveyed 103 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.

Topographic sheet of Sudbury, surveyed 1989

Topographic sheet of Sudbury, surveyed 1886

Topographic sheets covering this place

43 sheets

Matched by testing this settlement's coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet in the United States Geological Survey's historical collection. Each opens the scanned sheet at the Survey.

In the county-history sources

18,007 words on this township

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880 names this settlement in its chapter on Sudbury Town. These are the passages that mention it, exactly as the scans read.

LL authorities agree that the first settlers of Sudbury were drawn to this locality chiefly by the rich meadow-lands on either side of the river bearing the same name as the town through wliicli it flowed, as also by the abundance of woodland and the strength of the soil when once subdued. Johnson, in his Hidory of Xew England, 16o4, page 141, says: -

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

May 13, 1640, the court granted to the town " the addition of a mile in length upon the southeast and southwest sides of this plantation " ; and May 2, 1649, " Sudbury is granted two miles westward, next adjoining to them for their further enlargement."

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

Our fathers purchased this extent of land, five miles square, of an Indian called Cato, for the sum of £5. The original name of this Indian is not known. In addition to his name, Cato, he was called Goodman, and the hill a little south of the Congregational Meeting-house at Sudbury Centre, as it is in 1879, on the left side of the road as you go south, is designated Goodman's Hill. It is where Cato (Goodman) had his wigwam.

Passage source: History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : Containing Carefully Prepared Histories of Every City and Town in the County, published 1880.

Machine-read from a century-old scan, so expect the errors a machine makes: misspelled names, dropped words, stray characters.

Read the whole chapter on Sudbury Town - it names this place 77 more 77 times.

Fires near this place

85 since 1995

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal wildfire occurrence database lists 85 fires within 5 miles of Sudbury between 1995 and 2020, burning about 140 acres in total. 1 started naturally. 10 were recorded as arson. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Reported cause	Fires
Debris and open burning	45
Missing data/not specified/undetermined	16
Arson/incendiarism	10
Power generation/transmission/distribution	6
Recreation and ceremony	4
Natural	1
Equipment and vehicle use	1
Smoking	1
Fireworks	1

The most recent of them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service that recorded it.

Date	Cause	Size	Reported by	Name on the report
5 September 2020	Power generation/transmission/distribution	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
4 September 2018	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
22 September 2020	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
19 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
1 September 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
3 August 2020	Debris and open burning	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	not named
28 August 2017	Missing data/not specified/undetermined	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	FRAMINGHAM
28 August 2017	Fireworks	under an acre	Massachusetts Bureau of Forest Fire Control	HUDSON

Settlements close enough to share some of these fires:

Every fire recorded in Middlesex County

Specimens collected near this place

12 of 1,030 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. Museums hold 1,030 specimens collected within 10 miles of Sudbury between 1898 and 1975: 625 Animalia, 260 Plantae, 138 Fungi, 4 Chromista, 2 Protozoa, 1 Unrecorded. 12 distinct Species records are shown. Collected by A. B. Seymour, A. B. Seymour & M. D. Feigley, A. F. Newton and others. Each is a physical object with a catalogue number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be concluded from a species being absent.

Species	Year	Collected by	Where, as recorded
Corvus brachyrhynchos brachyrhynchos C.L.Brehm, 1822	1900	not recorded	Wayland
Actaea pachypoda Elliott	1898	Ernest Charles Smith
Antennaria howellii subsp. canadensis (Greene) R.J.Bayer	1898	Williams, E.F.
Antennaria parlinii subsp. fallax (Greene) R.J.Bayer & Stebbins	1898	not recorded
Antennaria plantaginifolia (L.) Hook.	1898	not recorded
Aquilegia canadensis L.	1898	M. I. Gunn	Natick
Agaricus brunnescens Peck	1900	Morris, G. E.	Waltham
Araiospora pulchra Thaxt.	1900	Thaxter, Roland	Stony Brook, Mass. [Massachusetts]
Boletus auriporus Peck	1900	G. E. Morris
Boletus badius (Fr.) Fr.	1900	G. E. Morris
Boletus rubropunctus Peck	1900	G. E. Morris
Buglossoides arvensis (L.) I.M.Johnst.	1900	C. H. Knowlton	Natick.

All 1,030 specimens within 10 miles, at the Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

Mines and quarries near this place

10 of 15 shown

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists 15 workings within 5 miles of Sudbury: 9 past producers, 3 unknowns, 3 producers. 3 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Peat. Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.

Site	Commodity	Status	Recorded
Panlini Loam Co	Peat	Past Producer	Peat
Acton Pit--Assabet S & G	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Arthur Scofield Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Assabet Sand and Gravel Co	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer	Sedimentary
Framington Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer
Hudson Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
Kane Corporation Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Melone Pit	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Producer
Melone Pit & Plant	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Unknown
New England Sand & Grv Co. Pit & Pl	Sand and Gravel, Construction	Past Producer

Every working recorded in Middlesex County

Storms near this place

14 since 1998

Regional context, not property-specific evidence. The National Weather Service names Sudbury in 14 storm reports between 1998 and 2025: 8 thunderstorm wind, 3 hail, 2 lightning, 1 flood. No death or injury is recorded in these reports. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date opens the federal record of that event.

When	Event	Place named	Harm	What the report says
August 2004	Thunderstorm Wind	Sudbury	$75,000	no account filed
August 2008	Flood	Sudbury	$40,000	In Sudbury, Maynard Road was flooded with two feet of water stranding several cars. Numerous other side roads also were flooded making them impassable. A large number of basements and backyards were flooded with water accumulating up to several feet in the basements. Four feet of water covered Main Street in Hudson, closing the road. In Maynard, numerous basements and backyards were flooded with water accumulating several feet in the basements.
August 2008	Lightning	East Sudbury	$15,000	Lightning struck a house on Virginia Road causing a fire.
August 2008	Lightning	East Sudbury	$15,000	Lightning struck a house on Northwood Street causing a fire.
August 2016	Thunderstorm Wind	East Sudbury	$10,000	A tree was downed on Goodnow Road and another on Plympton Road by thunderstorm winds.
July 2006	Thunderstorm Wind	Sudbury	$10,000	no account filed
June 2020	Thunderstorm Wind	North Sudbury	$5,000	In Sudbury, a tree was down on wires on Marlborough Road. Also, a tree was down on a house on Fox Run Road.
July 2019	Thunderstorm Wind	South Sudbury	$1,000	In Sudbury, a large pine tree was down on Pheasant Avenue.
September 2025	Thunderstorm Wind	North Sudbury	$800	In Wayland, multiple trees were down on Oxbow Rd.
August 2024	Thunderstorm Wind	South Sudbury	$200	In Sudbury, wires were down on Union Ave.
June 2020	Hail	East Sudbury	-	Quarter size hail was reported in Sudbury.
July 1999	Hail	Sudbury	-	no account filed
August 1999	Hail	Sudbury	-	no account filed
September 1998	Thunderstorm Wind	Sudbury	-	no account filed

Every storm recorded in Middlesex County

Nearest settlements

The eight closest, with where each one stands in the county. Distances are straight-line, computed from the Geographic Names Information System coordinates.

Place	Distance	Sheets
Musketamquid Village	0.1 miles	43
Pine Rest	1.2 miles	43
South Sudbury	1.4 miles	40
East Sudbury Station	1.8 miles	40
North Sudbury	1.9 miles	43
Pine Lake	2.2 miles	43
Wayland	3.2 miles	46
Nine Acre Corner	3.8 miles	43

Provenance

This settlement is recorded in the Geographic Names Information System as feature 611503. The sheet list is computed by point-in-boundary test against the United States Geological Survey's historical topographic inventory. Both are works of the United States government and carry no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.

Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.

Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.

Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.